by Maia Walczak
‘I don’t know Jack. I told you, I don’t know.’
He wanted to know how exactly I’d found out the real reason my parents were killed. I didn’t want to lie to him. It didn’t feel right. But I felt that it wasn’t necessary to tell him everything just yet. It didn’t seem relevant. My answer wasn’t a complete lie though. It was half true.
‘Books,’ I said.
When I was finally free to leave my artificial and fabricated family, I moved out. Not long after settling into my new place I fell in love with books. If I could give one piece of advice to politicians it would be this: you want a dumb nation? Close all the libraries and book shops.
You get a lot from reading, at least that’s what I found. Because almost all books are about people: their lives, stories, experiences and all the details that go with them. And so, naturally, by reading other people’s stories, I was drawn to my own. To the details.
At first I read children’s storybooks. It was through the easy-reads that I taught myself to finally properly read English. Then all sorts of books. Historical fiction, romance, biographies, classic novels. The books helped me delve deep into my memories. For years I’d been taught to not ask questions, and finally something – perhaps inevitable – happened inside me, a light turned on.
I made sense of the world through books and art. Books I consumed and art I created. It wasn’t necessarily a logical sense I was making of the world, but if nothing else the world certainly seemed less senseless when I read and when I created.
The money I received every month from the Cruz family was obscene. They were wealthy but even this seemed extravagant for them. At first I thought it was guilt money because they’d not fought hard enough to keep me when I moved out and drifted away from them. Then I started to think that maybe it was a compensation for the fact my mother got killed. Maybe it was filtering down from a higher power. I hadn’t put all the dots together yet, and perhaps I didn’t really want to. I had been taught for years to not ask too many questions, and I didn’t want to overthink it. In fact, I didn’t want to think about it at all.
I kept quiet. I kept myself to myself. I hadn’t yet learned the art of communication. All those years with my fake family had been years of solitude of a strange kind. I’d been surrounded by people, and yet I’d felt utterly alone. Like there was a constant invisible and impenetrable barrier between me and them. No matter how close we appeared to get there was always a feeling of limit, of never fully being able to let go. I was my only friend. Why? Because I was terrified. My mind created monsters and I didn’t know whether they were real or fantasy.
The monthly payments, and the simple fact I was still alive. It didn’t add up. But the hardest part was the fear. The feeling that I was being observed. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps it was paranoia. After all, it had been years, they should have forgotten about me by now. Perhaps. But it didn’t stop the monsters in my mind. I was still running away from the bullet that I was spared from that night.
Who could I possibly turn to anyway? How can you run for help to the authorities when the authorities are probably the ones you’re running away from? I kept my mouth shut so they’d have nothing to find. Nothing to see here. Just a normal life, a normal girl. I didn’t want any trouble and I didn’t want any more grief. I tried to give the appearance of living the most ordinary life I possibly could. Stay out of sight and out of mind.
I had enough money to not have to work. But I did work. I imagined it might keep me a little saner. Art was my distraction. The time I spent drawing, painting, sourcing art supplies, curating exhibitions, selling my work, all of that was time that kept me from thinking about other things. I don’t know what I would have been like if I didn’t have my art. I think I would have been even more of an outcast, more of a misfit. Maybe I’d have been drowning all the pain in alcohol and drugs on a daily basis, roaming the streets, maybe I’d be dead. All that time to think, I’m sure it would have killed me by now in some way. Maybe art was my drug, a drug that helped me to see the bright side, reminded me to focus on the beauty. And other times it was simple, pragmatic distraction.
*
The sun hid behind a cloud and a pleasant breeze blew over us. I stopped talking. There was probably more to say, but I felt I had come to some kind of close.
Could it be true that after all these years my story had been vocalised? Had I really just done this or was I asleep? Would I wake up and think thank fuck that didn’t actually happen! Or would I think, shit, that dream felt so good, I need to tell someone?
It all felt so strange, I actually had to laugh.
Jack was silent, lost for words perhaps. I felt exhausted. I lay back on the boulder, stared up at the sky. A tear rolled down from the corner of my eye. I wiped it away quickly and closed my eyes and breathed deep.
‘It’s all so insane, isn’t it?’ I laughed. I was waiting for some kind of response or reaction.
‘Silvia?’
‘Yes?’
‘Have you never thought to bring this forward to a lawyer, to someone who could help you?’
I laughed, but I didn’t even answer him. The simple answer would have been yes, it had crossed my mind, but the fear of being found out had always been too strong. It was far easier to live by their rules of silence.
‘Because you just did.’
Two Favours
Five days had passed since our last conversation. It was early afternoon and I was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for the doorbell to ring.
‘What could a lawyer possibly do for me?’ I’d asked him. ‘Those people who had my parents killed, they are the law. They make the rules. There is no escape.’
‘You can’t think like that,’ he said. He was shocked and annoyed. ‘Why do you think a job like mine even exists? Horrific things like this happen way more often that you can imagine. Who do you think is the biggest perpetrator of human rights and ecological violations? The giant corporations. The government. Its intelligence agencies. It’s all tied up. It’s all the same mechanism. It’s because of that that my job has to even exist in the first place. I don’t understand why you haven’t done anything about any of this before.’
He sat there shaking his head as though he was disappointed in me. It made me angry.
‘You just really don’t get it, do you? They have all the power. They always win. What can anyone possibly do? It’s like… we’re tiny… and they’re huge… it’s impossible!’
‘No,’ he said, ‘no, no, no. You just can’t think like that. It’s that kind of thought that gives them power.’
‘I’m sorry Jack, but I don’t believe you,’ I said. ‘I think you’re being idealistic.’
He looked so offended.
‘And I think you don’t know enough about the work I do,’ he said.
I wanted to believe him. I really wanted to believe him.
‘Silvia,’ he said, ‘I’d like to take your case on.’
A thousand thoughts ran through my head and I didn’t know which one to listen to. A case. My case?
‘Jack, no one knows any of this except you. Don’t you get it? Only you. And I’d like to keep it that way. I don’t even know why I told you.’
‘Look, listen to me – no one else needs to know about any of this until I have it figured out.’
I was shaking my head but I couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘You’ve been too scared to go to anyone all this time, haven’t you? But you don’t even know who you’re afraid of in this situation!’
‘Jack please, I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.’
‘I just want you to know that this is different.’
‘What do you mean? What’s different? What are you talking about?’
‘Well, you didn’t actively go and seek out some kind of help, did you? You’re scared of having the responsibility in all of this. You were, understandably, scared of making that leap all by yourself.’
‘I don’t know…�
�
‘Well this is different, because it’s my decision, not yours. It’s my responsibility, not yours. You can forget you ever told me any of this. Only when I come up with something will we revisit it, okay? In the meantime carry on living your secret life as you’ve always wanted.’ He paused. ‘But you haven’t, have you?’
‘Haven’t what?’
‘You didn’t really think that you’d be able to live like this for the rest of your life, did you?’
It felt like he was interrogating me. Why was he suddenly so sure of all these things? He didn’t know me.
‘I… I don’t know.’
‘Silvia, you chose to tell me this for a reason. You made a decision to start finding out the truth.’
*
The doorbell rang at exactly 2pm. I’d needed a few days alone to calm down and to think.
‘So this is what we do,’ said Jack, once we’d sat down on the sofa. ‘We stay put, you do things as usual, and in the meantime I’ll start looking into things for you.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘No,’ he said, ‘don’t thank me, I haven’t done anything yet.’
‘Well actually it looks like you have,’ I said, fiddling about with a few documents he’d laid out on the coffee table.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘think of it as a favour you’re doing me. Some nutjob lawyers from my field spend their whole lives waiting or looking for a case like this. Seriously.’
He laughed and so did I – a little nervously perhaps, but I laughed. He was making me look at things in new light. I already felt more removed from everything that had happened to me, like a character from a film. Like I was watching a story unfold about someone else, not me. It felt good. It felt empowering.
‘Okay,’ he continued, ‘so, we keep doing everything as normal, going about our business as usual, unless…’ he stopped, ‘unless something happens.’ He paused again and looked me straight in the eyes. ‘Any inkling,’ he said, ‘any inkling you get that something’s changed, then you use this phone,’ he said, looking down at the two phones he’d put on the coffee table. ‘It’s prepaid and you’ll have to keep it charged, switched on and with you all the time.’
His face was stone serious. He handed me one of the phones and slid the charger across the coffee table towards me. As I grasped the phone in my hand, my heart suddenly sunk. The realness of all of this was hitting me.
‘And,’ he continued, ‘you send me a message, mine’s the only number stored in it, and you say something trivial like, “See you at five on Thursday.” What that message will mean is that as soon as I get it, we drop what we’re doing, go home, get our bags and then we meet at the Westfield Horton Plaza Shopping Mall, and from there…’ he paused, ‘we hit the road.’
I burst out laughing and shook my head. Then I stopped. He was being serious. There was silence for a moment as we both contemplated those four last iconic words he’d said, and the actual reality that would come with them if his plan ever came to be. We hit the road.
‘It has to be as soon as possible after the message is sent though,’ he said breaking the silence with a hint of urgency. ‘That’s important. We don’t want to be hanging around, because that’s just too dodgy. It shouldn’t take too long, right? To stop what we’re doing, pick up our bags and get there? Right?’
He was looking at me. Fuck. He wanted an answer.
‘I… I don’t know,’ I said. My mind was racing with all this information. He was speaking so fast, I could barely take all of it in.
‘The Horton Plaza Westfield has a twenty-four hour gym, so whatever time we’d end up meeting wouldn’t look strange. People go there at all kinds of times. So we meet outside the gym. Do you know it? Have you been to that mall?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, I’d been there just once before, ‘it’s the one with the kind of trippy buildings.’
‘Yeah, that’s the one.’ He paused for a second as though he’d gotten sidetracked by his own thoughts. ‘Good,’ he continued, ‘so whatever happens, don’t take a lot with you, just a backpack or something, you know, something that could pass for a gym bag. And come dressed in gym wear.’
Suddenly a wave of dread hit me. This all seemed so uncomfortably real. It must have shown on my face.
‘This is all just in case, don’t forget,’ he said.
‘You… you told me it was unlikely.’
Just the other day he’d made me feel silly for my apparently overblown paranoia, saying it was unlikely anyone was still watching me, that anyone would find anything out. But now… now he was coming out with all this?
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘of course it is. I’m just being hyper cautious, just in case. It’s good to have a plan. Chances are no one is watching you or me at all, and to be honest that’s the most likely scenario. I really don’t think they are.’
He looked at me in a way that reassured me. I felt a little better. He had a way of suddenly changing his whole demeanour and with it making me feel immediately better. My body responded to his. It was strange, the weird way I had suddenly felt so relaxed when I first drew him. And surely he knew best. He was a lawyer after all.
‘Text me tomorrow from your usual phone asking me if I’m free for another modelling session. Needless to say, make the text seem as normal as any you’ve ever sent.’
I nodded.
‘We can discuss things further next time. I should go now,’ he said, and he got up to leave.
We walked towards the door without looking at each other.
‘Thank you,’ I said, just before reaching the door.
‘You need to stop saying that!’ he smiled, ‘Remember, we’re both doing each other a favour.’ And after a pause he quietly added, ‘Pack your bags tonight and have them ready just in case. And start withdrawing as much cash as you can.’
‘What? Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are we crazy?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled.
Knock Knock
I would have liked to have told him to stay and not to rush off that afternoon – but of course, I didn’t. Instead I just agreed when he said he had to leave, and later regretted it. I wondered if somebody had tapped my phone. They’d already know Jack was a lawyer, because Pete had mentioned it when he called me on Thursday. But so what? So what if he was a lawyer? That didn’t have to mean anything! And for fuck’s sake, if anyone was somehow spying – and I didn’t even know if they actually were, or ever had for that matter – how could they possibly ever keep track of all the people that came in and out of my daily life? It was absurd!
I had done as he’d told me that day. Half an hour after he’d left I went to the nearest cash point and I withdrew my limit of $800. I reminded myself that this was simply a precaution. Then I got home and packed my emergency bag, laughing to myself. Why was it now, when I was potentially less safe than before, that I felt so good? Why was it that something so serious felt like such a light-hearted joke all of a sudden? Maybe it was because all those years I’d kept a secret, and now I’d broken the chain and the secret didn’t have its hold on me. Maybe now as I sifted through my wardrobe it felt as though I was packing for a vacation. It all felt quite absurd. I couldn’t stop laughing. I picked up a wad of $750 from deep inside my underwear drawer – a cash payment from a painting I’d sold last month – and tossed it towards my bag. Then I grabbed another stash of $325 – the remainder of the funds I kept in the apartment to pay my models – and I threw it behind me, not even looking to see where it landed. More fits of laughter. There was something ridiculous about throwing all this money about; the adrenaline and this strange sense of joy. I put some uplifting dance music on and jumped, danced and even sung along while I chose what on earth would go into this bag of mine. I had never once felt quite as elated as this.
How could I pack this bag? I didn’t even know where we would be going if we suddenly had to leave. I’d pack the bare essentials now and ask him later. One of the bare essentials �
�� I’d already decided – was a small sketchpad. Wherever I went, I wanted to still be able to draw.
As I went to take a shower that night I stared at my reflection in the mirror and I suddenly felt nauseous. I threw up in the toilet bowl. That’s when I realised how many nerves were hiding beneath this feeling of excitement I was experiencing. They had waited, skulking, surfacing in the night hours when everything seems worse.
Suddenly I was paralysed by a fear that I kept telling myself wasn’t at all rational. I was so frightened. I felt scared to open the bathroom door because I feared whatever was behind it. I don’t know what I imagined could have possibly been there. I feared that the monsters in my head were waiting for me in that room. I wished so much that Jack had never left me that afternoon.
I lay in bed, listening to every noise that interrupted the silence. Every far off footstep that echoed in the building, every gurgling pipe, every passing plane, nothing escaped my attention and it all seemed sinister. Each little sound made my heart beat faster. I was mad, I knew I was, but it didn’t help to recognise it, it only made me more scared. At some point I finally fell asleep in a cold sweat.
*
Bang. I hear the gunshot. I see the blood. My world turns black. I am endlessly pulled back into this moment. I remember it in my dreams and in my waking hours. Sometimes the memory comes suddenly and violently out of nowhere and surprises me when I least expect it. So much time has passed and I still remember it so clearly. It’s nagging me to find out the truth. It’s like my mother won’t leave me – she wants justice.
*
With daylight came sanity and a sense of great relief. I laughed at last night’s fear and madness, at the half-packed bag on the chair near my bed and the crazy mess of clothes splayed around it. Before I knew it I was packing and repacking, as though getting it right was the most important thing in the world. After a while I had to abandon what I was doing as it was a little overwhelming and I found myself getting lost in something I thought was really unnecessary and daft. By now the bag was near full anyway, and even more clothes and toiletries surrounded it.
